As I See It: RAM, ROM, and Rama Rama Ding Dong

by Victor Rozek

What do Thomas Edison and Monty Python have in common? Give up? They both inadvertently helped to popularize two of the most brilliant stars in the IT jargon firmament: Bug and Spam. Although it is generally believed that the term "bug," as applied to computing, originated in 1947 when Grace Hopper purportedly found a moth in a Harvard Mark II computer, the first references to "bugs" actually emerged from Edison's lab some 70 years earlier and were chronicled in a number of articles about the great man.

According to the Business and High-Tech Dictionary Project, one such article appeared in the 1889 edition of the Pall Mall Gazette. It recounts that "Mr. Edison . . . had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his phonograph--an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble." Happily, it is a definition that remains useful to this day, allowing generations of software developers to dodge accountability by blaming their mistakes on those ubiquitous "imaginary insects." Thank you, Mr. Edison.

As for Spam, it was an obscure meat-like substance of last resort until it received an infusion of hip from Monty Python. Thirty-five years ago, Monty Python did a sketch of Vikings gorging in a restaurant that served nothing but Spam. They celebrated its virtues in song, as only hungry barbarians can, indifferent to taste, requiring only volume and availability. And if my email inbox is any indication, volume, availability, and bad taste still accurately characterize spam. One thing about Monty Python, they sure knew a thing or two about bad taste.

Words like "bug" and "spam" have become such a common part of our vernacular that we take them for granted, but every profession worth its salt has its own inscrutable jargon designed to provide insiders with instant erudition while annoying the rest of us. Shrouded in the impenetrable fog of specialization, experts of every ilk use the power of obscure language to--among other things--maintain an aura of billable expertise. Doctors and lawyers come to mind. (Doctors are especially adept because talking to one for any length of time guarantees to give you a headache which they will then charge you to cure!)

With just a dash of professional patois, CPAs don't merely manipulate numbers, they dabble in special purpose entities, and mark to market accounting schemes; a massage therapist isn't just giving you a back rub, she's performing effleurage, petrosage, and topotement; and plumbers can suddenly do what surgeons cannot: graft nipples to elbows.

IT, however, is its own universe. Ever since the days when DOS was king and mainframes were the size of small condominiums, acronyms poured from the industry like waters through the New Orleans levee system. Users--an industry term that describes a subclass of people who require intermediaries before being able to make contact with the computer gods--were drowning in acronyms, their eyes as blank as glazed donut holes while they listened to yet another explanation of why the system was down.

Cryptic error messages further anchored the notion that IT was mysterious and unfathomable. File not found/available is useful as far as it goes, but there is a big difference between "not found" and "not available." The latter offers hope, the former poses a range of unpleasant possibilities from frustration to panic.

Confusion persists and manifests in sometimes surprising ways. A survey by VIA Net.Works found that 26 per cent of small firms made incorrect purchasing decisions because they were misled by jargon.

Lost time, lost money, not to mention frustration and resentment are common outcomes for inexperienced information technology buyers in part because the industry presumes a level of expertise that often doesn't exist. The promise of IT was simplification (remember the paperless office?), but the only aspect of computing to deliver on that promise was the user interface which, to the chagrin of the users, was promptly trumped by the complexity of new generations of software. Ultimately, simplified interfaces have limited value if you don't understand the nuances of the software you're using.

Complicating life for the end user, computers and software are sold as commodities with no more point-of-sale technical support than comes with purchasing a toothbrush. And marketing new hardware or software inevitably relies on the heavy use of jargon in order to appeal to the primary target audience--professionals who already understand the lingo. Thus, technology is vastly underutilized as purchasers use sophisticated computers to accomplish mundane tasks (word processing, accounting, Internet access), using but a small portion of a system's overall capabilities.

Although new technologies require new languages to describe them, the purpose of professional jargon is not, primarily, to communicate, but to establish both a hierarchy and a criteria for belonging. Certain words identify us as belonging to certain tribes. And knowing the lingo is our passport in.

Jargon is the modern equivalent of the guild system. It identifies which guild you belong to and, based on your fluency, marks you as either an apprentice, journeyman, or master. Membership to any exclusive club, however, is likely to create a degree of mutual disdain between members and outsiders. Professional nerds scorn civilians because users want the benefits of technology without acquiring the expertise; users resent the acronyms and jargon, which make them feel confused and stupid. Thus, outside of the guild, jargon is less useful; sort of like insisting on speaking Italian to someone who understands no Italian, and then blaming them for not understanding.

IT professionals, however, are addicted to jargon, and changing that requires more skill than I currently possess, so I sought professional help. Yes, I'm not too proud to ask for assistance, or directions for that matter, so when I ran across an article titled "Phonological Naming Therapy in Jargon Aphasia" I knew help was at hand.

In truth, I didn't know what exactly any of that meant, but it sounded so damned helpful that I turned for clarification to the publishers themselves, the Department of Clinical Communication Studies of City University in London. A nation as fastidious about language as the British, I figured, would surely know what to do.

Turns out, they were well familiar with IT jargon and, having faced the dual challenge of hearing techno-babble delivered with a Cockney accent, they resolved to develop a cure. Their new modality for curing techno-babble is called "Phonological Naming Therapy," which is appropriate, they claim, for individuals "fluent in jargon speech, with neologisms, verbal paraphasias, and paragrammatisms." I was pretty sure that described us.

So, all you techno-babblers, find the courage to look in the mirror. If you use jargon "underpinned by a severe anomia," and communicate in such a way that "content words are rarely accessed either in spontaneous speech or naming," then Phonological Naming Therapy is for you.

I, myself, after undergoing an arduous therapeutic regimen (too painful to recount here) was released with the following prognosis: "Single word investigations highlighted some preserved skills. Auditory comprehension, at least for concrete words, was relatively intact and although nonwords could not be repeated, words could, and at a level which was far superior to naming." In my defense, although I did have trouble repeating "nonwords," the doctors noted that I grunted with great distinction. And further, I'm proud to say that I "also had some ability to respond to phonological cues." (I would probably have responded better if I knew what they were.) "These results," the doctors concluded, "suggested that phonological representations were preserved and that there were some intact semantic abilities . . . Post-therapy investigations of naming demonstrated dramatic improvements."

Thus, armed with a clean bill of health, I am now able to return to work, free of techno-babble, able to leap simple sentences at a single bound.

There you have it. That's the way professionals help people "fluent in jargon speech." If nothing else, this is proof that a college education is not always a good thing.